Quick Start

Submitted by admin on Wed, 02/02/2011 - 12:56

There are 2 contexts which you may wish to start using MyRobotLab. They are :

User - someone who uses MyRobotLab on some project. They are interested in only utilizing the current capabilities of MyRobotLab and are not interested in developing new Services. You may develop new functionality in Python within a "User" context and do not need Eclipse or any other dependencies.

Developer - someone who is interested in creating new Services in Java. They are interested in extending the functionality of MyRobotLab.

Currently you can use the GUI to change message routing and some parameters of configuration, or you may use the Jython Service to create (Python-)scripts. The Jython environment has access to nearly all functionality of MyRobotLab.

Check out the Tutorials for something you like, or make a request for a new tutorial.

Clone a Git repository
We have 1 GitHub repo we want cloned :https://github.com/MyRobotLab/myrobotlab
Use your own GitHub credentials if you have them - they aren't necessary if you just want to clone.

You can select needed branch, develop branch is current WIP, master the last stable.
I do not usually like the "default" location it chooses - but prefer a subdirectory to my workspace. Also click the Import all existing projects after the clone finishes

Switch now to Java view

Click File / import maven

Select folder where GIT downloaded the repository, to select the pom.xml file

It will take a long time. I would recommend finding something else to do instead of watching the green bar. Perhaps learn how to play the guitar ...

From package explorer, on the left, double-click on main.java.org.myrobotlab.service.Runtime This will bring the Runtime service into the editor. The Runtime is the first service which starts when MyRobotLab begins. It controls starting and stopping other Services. This is the service we want to start to run MyRobotLab interactively through the Eclipse debugger.

PRESS F11
This will start the debugger, which if you don't have any errors should start the Runtime service. You can switch to the debug perspective, and it should look like this.

It doesn't do anything and ends quite quickly. That is because there are no command line parameters and the Runtime does not know what to do.

Add the following parameters
Right-Click on the Runtime file and select "Debug As -> Debug Configurations"
The -service tells which services to start and what to name them. In this case we are going to start a SwingGui servicewho's name is "gui". You can add on to this command as many services as you want. For example -service gui SwingGui python Python will start a GUIService named gui and a Python service named python.

Parameters Explained:

-service gui SwingGui Starts a SwingGui service named "gui", you may start multiple services at once with this command parameter. It will need to follow this convention -service <serviceName> <serviceType> <serviceName> <serviceType> ....
For example, -service gui01 SwingGui editor Jython
Starts a swingGui named gui01 and a Jython service named editor

-logToConsole redirects logging to the eclipse console, otherwise default behavior will be to a myrobotlab.log file

VM Arguments
-Djava.library.path="libraries/native/x86.32.windows;libraries/native/x86.64.windows" on Windows or
-Djava.library.path="./libraries/native/x86.32.linux:./libraries/native/x86.64.linux:./libraries/native/x86.32.mac" on Linux or Mac allows MyRobotLab to use native libraries required by some of the services (e.g. OpenCV, Arduino, Joystick, etc).
These directories are populated by the repo manager depending on what services are loaded & installed.

Hit F11 on the Runtime file and you should be up and running MyRobotLab in the Eclipse debugging perspective... have fun :)